The way I see it, the benefit of cheaper diagnostic technology is the difference between no access (or extremely limited) to that technology and access to an inferior but otherwise capable technology.
I agree to a certain extent. I think it would mostly be useful in developing areas where you might have someone who has training to make simple diagnostic calls (should this person be put on a 2 day bus ride to a hospital), but doesn't have the tools to make the diagnosis.
Basically, places where buying $10k of diagnostic tools wouldn't be tenable, either because of the price, or because they would get stolen or damaged before they could "pay off".
Places where I think this might be useful are places like Nepal, Sudan, Pakistan, India, Niger, Mongolia, etc. Places that have low development and population densities.
I think a DIY instrument would be especially useful in India, given the fact that it has low development levels but a lot of highly educated individuals and a strong central government.
That being said, this is all speculation. I don't know enough about ANY of those areas to say whether people there would actually find tools like this useful. I'm definitely not suggesting we start filling shipping containers with cheap instruments and shipping them abroad.
